Contract electronics manufacturers, Barric, have appointed Mike Bayley as Director of Business Development and Marketing. Mike has worked at Barric for over 20 years having held several senior technical positions. His appointment is a part of Barric's current growth strategy and is intended to help Barric ensure that existing customers continue to receive the high quality of service for which Barric has become known, as well as winning new customers from across Europe.

"What makes Barric successful, is the fact that the management team each have many years of hands-on electronic manufacturing experience," said Karl Hain, Managing Director of Barric. "Mike's experience with surface mount and BGA technology is extensive and his understanding of industry issues such as lead-free regulations, procurement and quality systems makes him an ideal person to take on the critical role of managing the relationships we have with our customers."

Although Barric's core expertise is the manufacture of embedded electronics, using high speed pick and place technology, Barric also undertake complete product manufacturing and have a specialist cable-assembly manufacturing department. Since the company's formation thirty years ago, Barric have undertaken projects for many of the world’s leading technology companies, ranging from automotive systems to marine safety systems.

"This is an exciting appointment," said Mike Bayley. "I think Barric are now a leader in this field, there are very few companies that can match Barric's technology, inspection systems and expertise. My main role will be to work with our clients from the design stages into the early stages of production. Working with our customers in the early stages of design we can ensure that the design is optimised for manufacture and in-field reliability - both of these aspects can have a big impact on the profitability of the overall project and its success in the marketplace."

Barric are based in Diss, Norfolk and currently manufacture products for customers as far away as the US. One of Barric's recent projects seems to confirm that there is a trend emerging whereby European manufacturers are starting to bring projects back to Europe from locations of low wage economies. Although recent out-sourcing strategies have put Asia and Eastern Europe in the spotlight, manufacturers are increasingly looking at on-shoring opportunities closer to home in response to higher than anticipated total landed costs, quality issues, longer lead times, port congestion, higher fuel costs and maybe also as a part of their environmental strategies.

"Yes, we are currently manufacturing a product that was being made in Eastern Europe," said Mike. "The UK owners of the product came to us because they had suffered from recurrent quality issues that involved the managers in a lot of air travel. Since we have been working with this company we have advised them of several design changes that have not only improved quality but have also improved production rates."